Cash-strapped north body plans another civic centre

The cash-strapped North Corporation has announced that it will build another Civic Centre in the city — this time in the form of a commercial complex.

It will come up over an area of 1.21 lakh square meters in Azadpur and will be a skyscraper like the 28-storey Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre, the North Corporation’s headquarters on Minto Road.

The proposed building is being estimated to earn Rs. 500 crore for the corporation annually.“Azadpur is a prime location and, therefore, the commercial complex will earn a lot of revenue for us,” said standing committee chairman Yogender Chandolia.

Currently, 500 dilapidated staff quarters are located on the site that will be relocated.

He blamed the Delhi government for shortage of funds. “The Delhi government has to pay us hundreds of crores under education grants, global share and municipal reforms. We demand them to make the payments immediately,” he said.

Chandolia, while presenting the budget for the north body, had said that in the wake of “government apathy”, the focus this year will be to generate income by building more commercial and residential complexes in the city. The corporation will demolish the old residential buildings at Thomson Road, Minto Road and Jahangir Road and convert them into multi-storey residential-cum-commercial complexes.